Chris Moneymaker

If there was one player that held the majority of responsibility for the poker boom from 2003 and onwards, it is Chris Moneymaker. This is the man that showed recreational poker players that it is possible to go on and win the world’s most prestigious event in the World Series of Poker Main Event after coming from nowhere.

He became the first winner of the WSOP Main Event after qualifying for his seat online. He bought into a satellite that cost him $39 on PokerStars, won it and his prize was a seat in the $10,000 WSOP Main Event.

In true fairytale style he went on to win the whole event for a payout of $2,500,000, a result that caused a huge boom in online poker. The industry erupted with new players who came into the game after witnessing that monumental victory, giving each of them hope that they could one day emulate the success of Moneymaker.

Moneymaker would be the first to admit that the most important hand of his Main Event came when he eliminated Phil Ivey in 10th place. He got extremely lucky on the river with many saying that that hand was the one that changed poker to what it is today.

After that win he was instantly signed up by PokerStars to be one of their PokerStars Team Pros, a position he still holds to this day. It would be criminal for them not to have, seeing as he was undoubtedly the reason for their success in the early days.

Moneymaker might not have had the best of results since that win, but he has secured total career earnings of $3,522,441 with his next best result being a 2nd place finish in the 2011 NBC heads Up Championship for $300,000.

Moneymaker has been married twice in his life and is currently extremely happy with his life and who can blame him. He has gone from being an accountant to a professional poker player, a switch that many of us aspiring poker players can only dream of.